G.K. Chesterton - The Greatest Literature of All Time Greatest Stories list: [SHOW] [HIDE] • "The Blue Cross" (1910) The Innocence of Father Brown [SHOW] [HIDE] The Innocence of Father Brown is the first of five collections of mystery stories featuring Chesterton's canny priest. It's probably the best collection and.... more The Man Who Was Thursday [SHOW] [HIDE] If you come to Chesterton's avowed masterpiece expecting a piece of early twentieth-century realism, you're going to be very surprised. If you come to it having heard.... more Genius recalled His friend and opponent George Bernard Shaw called him a "colossal genius". If we no longer consider G.K. Chesterton a colossal genius, it is not because we consider him any less brilliant now but because we do not consider him at all. If Chesterton were the colossal proponent of progressive liberal ideas, he would likely still be enshrined in the pantheon of early twentieth-century luminaries alongside his contemporaries Shaw and H.G. Wells.

But the orthodox Christianity he championed, the Roman Catholic version in his latter life, no longer seems the kind of cause we consider worthy of the service of modern geniuses. His books and essays on the topic of religion—as well as on social issues, economics, literary criticism and humour—can still be read and appreciated today as brilliantly witty, insightful and sensible polemics. You can find most of them on the Internet, on sites devoted to Chesterton. Look especially for his two greatest Christian apologetics, Orthodoxy (1908) and The Everlasting Man (1925). But for most readers today he is remembered for a series of mystery stories he wrote to support the work he considered more important. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born into a middle-class family in London. He dropped out of university College to work as a journalist. For the rest of his life most of his work appeared first in periodicals, including his own publication, G.K.'s Weekly. He was also a poet, his first book being a collection, Greybeards at Play (1900).

This was followed by his first two of many literary biographies, Robert Browning (1903) and Charles Dickens (1906), and his first novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904), a political satire which many readers consider his most entertaining work. The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) is widely considered his best fictional work. The novel is presented as a detective story but its surrealistic twists and unworldly characters turn it into a Christian allegory—a king of "metaphysical thriller", as it's been called. His first short story featuring the crime-solving priest, Father Brown, was "The Blue Cross", appearing in a magazine in 1910. With eleven other stories, it was reprinted in The Innocence of Father Brown (1911), which became a sensation. Critics and readers saw it as the greatest development of the mystery since Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.

Four other such collections of stories were published during Chesterton's life: The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914), The Incredulity of Father Brown (1926), The Secret of Father Brown (1927) and The Scandal of Father Brown (1935). Chesterton produced over a hundred books during his lifetime, and many more anthologies of his works have been published since his death in 1936. Unfortunately in recent decades his works and ideas have disappeared from public discourse, leaving only an impression of stuffy reaction in the collective memory. Which is our loss, as his writings—like those of the yet popular C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien—ventured beyond their religiously conservative underpinnings to offer insights into life in this world to provoke readers of even little or no faith. If it's only his mysteries and mysterious satire that survive widely to draw the occasional reader back into his heavier thoughts, then that's all to the good. And for those of us for whom the popular works are enough—well, that alone is a greater legacy than Chesterton himself probably gave himself credit for.

— Eric The Napoleon of Notting Hill Get at Amazon: The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® The Napoleon of Notting Hill A Fantasy of the Future By G. K. Chesterton, W. Graham Robertson OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA Copyright © 2015 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc. All rights reserved. CHAPTER 1 Introductory Remarks on the Art of Prophecy The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called "Keep to-morrow dark," and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) "Cheat the Prophet." The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.

For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the childish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have seen to be inevitable. They stoned the false prophets, it is said; but they could have stoned true prophets with a greater and juster enjoyment. Individually, men may present a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity as a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman. But in the beginning of the twentieth century the game of Cheat the Prophet was made far more difficult than it had ever been before. The reason was, that there were so many prophets and so many prophecies, that it was difficult to elude all their ingenuities. When a man did something free and frantic and entirely his own, a horrible thought struck him afterwards; it might have been predicted. Whenever a duke climbed a lamp-post, when a dean got drunk, he could not be really happy, he could not be certain that he was not fulfilling some prophecy. In the beginning of the twentieth century you could not see the ground for clever men.

They were so common that a stupid man was quite exceptional, and when they found him, they followed him in crowds down the street and treasured him up and gave him some high post in the State. And all these clever men were at work giving accounts of what would happen in the next age, all quite clear, all quite keen-sighted and ruthless, and all quite different. And it seemed that the good old game of hoodwinking your ancestors could not really be managed this time, because the ancestors neglected meat and sleep and practical politics, so that they might meditate day and night on what their descendants would be likely to do. But the way the prophets of the twentieth century went to work was this. They took something or other that was certainly going on in their time, and then said that it would go on more and more until something extraordinary happened. And very often they added that in some odd place that extraordinary thing had happened, and that it showed the signs of the times. Thus, for instance, there were Mr. H. G.

Wells and others, who thought that science would take charge of the future; and just as the motor-car was quicker than the coach, so some lovely thing would be quicker than the motor-car; and so on for ever. And there arose from their ashes Dr. Quilp, who said that a man could be sent on his machine so fast round the world that he could keep up a long, chatty conversation in some old-world village by saying a word of a sentence each time he came round. And it was said that the experiment had been tried on an apoplectic old major, who was sent round the world so fast that there seemed to be (to the inhabitants of some other star) a continuous band round the earth of white whiskers, red complexion and tweeds — a thing like the ring of Saturn. Then there was the opposite school. There was Mr. Edward Carpenter, who thought we should in a very short time return to Nature, and live simply and slowly as the animals do. And Edward Carpenter was followed by James Pickie, D.D. (of Pocohontas College), who said that men were immensely improved by grazing, or taking their food slowly and continuously, after the manner of cows.

And he said that he had, with the most encouraging results, turned city men out on all fours in a field covered with veal cutlets. Then Tolstoy and the Humanitarians said that the world was growing more merciful, and therefore no one would ever desire to kill. And Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian, but at length declared vegetarianism doomed ("shedding," as he called it finely, "the green blood of the silent animals"), and predicted that men in a better age would live on nothing but salt. And then came the pamphlet from Oregon (where the thing was tried), the pamphlet called "Why should Salt suffer?" and there was more trouble. And on the other hand, some people were predicting that the lines of kinship would become narrower and sterner. There was Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who thought that the one thing of the future was the British Empire, and that there would be a gulf between those who were of the Empire and those who were not, between the Chinaman in Hong Kong and the Chinaman outside, between the Spaniard on the Rock of Gibraltar and the Spaniard off it, similar to the gulf between man and the lower animals.

And in the same way his impetuous friend, Dr. Zoppi ("the Paul of Anglo-Saxonism"), carried it yet further, and held that, as a result of this view, cannibalism should be held to mean eating a member of the Empire, not eating one of the subject peoples, who should, he said, be killed without needless pain. His horror at the idea of eating a man in British Guiana showed how they who thought him devoid of feeling misunderstood his stoicism. He was, however, in a hard position; as it was said that he had attempted the experiment, and, living in London, had to subsist entirely on Italian organ-grinders. And his end was terrible, for just when he had begun, Sir Paul Swiller read his great paper at the Royal Society, proving that the savages were not only quite right in eating their enemies, but right on moral and hygienic grounds, since it was true that the qualities of the enemy, when eaten, passed into the eater. The notion that the nature of an Italian organ-man was irrevocably growing and burgeoning inside him was almost more than the kindly old professor could bear. There was Mr.

Benjamin Kidd, who said that the growing note of our race would be the care for and knowledge of the future. His idea was developed more powerfully by William Borker, who wrote that passage which every schoolboy knows by heart, about men in future ages weeping by the graves of their descendants, and tourists being shown over the scene of the historic battle which was to take place some centuries afterwards. And Mr. Stead, too, was prominent, who thought that England would in the twentieth century be united to America; and his young lieutenant, Graham Podge, who included the states of France, Germany, and Russia in the American Union, the State of Russia being abbreviated to Ra. There was Mr. Sidney Webb, also, who said that the future would see a continuously increasing order and neatness in the life of the people, and his poor friend Fipps, who went mad and ran about the country with an axe, hacking branches off the trees whenever there were not the same number on both sides.

All these clever men were prophesying with every variety of ingenuity what would happen soon, and they all did it in the same way, by taking something they saw "going strong," as the saying is, and carrying it as far as ever their imagination could stretch. This, they said, was the true and simple way of anticipating the future. "Just as," said Dr. Pellkins, in a fine passage, — "just as when we see a pig in a litter larger than the other pigs, we know that by an unalterable law of the Inscrutable it will some day be larger than an elephant, — just as we know, when we see weeds and dandelions growing more and more thickly in a garden, that they must, in spite of all our efforts, grow taller than the chimney-pots and swallow the house from sight, so we know and reverently acknowledge, that when any power in human politics has shown for any period of time any considerable activity, it will go on until it reaches to the sky." And it did certainly appear that the prophets had put the people (engaged in the old game Cheat the Prophet) in a quite unprecedented difficulty.

It seemed really hard to do anything without fulfilling some of their prophecies. But there was, nevertheless, in the eyes of labourers in the streets, of peasants in the fields, of sailors and children, and especially women, a strange look that kept the wise men in a perfect fever of doubt. They could not fathom the motionless mirth in their eyes. They still had something up their sleeve; they were still playing the game of Cheat the Prophet. Then the wise men grew like wild things, and swayed hither and thither, crying, "What can it be? What can it be? What will London be like a century hence? Is there anything we have not thought of? Houses upside down — more hygienic, perhaps? Men walking on hands — make feet flexible, don't you know? Moon ... motor-cars ... no heads ..." And so they swayed and wondered until they died and were buried nicely. Then the people went and did what they liked. Let me no longer conceal the painful truth. The people had cheated the prophets of the twentieth century. When the curtain goes up on this story, eighty years after the present date, London is almost exactly like what it is now.

CHAPTER 2 The Man in Green Very few words are needed to explain why London, a hundred years hence, will be very like it is now, or rather, since I must slip into a prophetic past, why London, when my story opens, was very like it was in those enviable days when I was still alive. The reason can be stated in one sentence. The people had absolutely lost faith in revolutions. All revolutions are doctrinal — such as the French one, or the one that introduced Christianity. For it stands to common sense that you cannot upset all existing things, customs, and compromises, unless you believe in something outside them, something positive and divine. Now, England, during this century, lost all belief in this. It believed in a thing called Evolution. And it said, "All theoretic changes have ended in blood and ennui. If we change, we must change slowly and safely, as the animals do. Nature's revolutions are the only successful ones. There has been no conservative reaction in favour of tails." And some things did change. Things that were not much thought of dropped out of sight. Things that had not often happened did not happen at all.

Thus, for instance, the actual physical force ruling the country, the soldiers and police, grew smaller and smaller, and at last vanished almost to a point. The people combined could have swept the few policemen away in ten minutes: they did not, because they did not believe it would do them the least good. They had lost faith in revolutions. Democracy was dead; for no one minded the governing class governing. England was now practically a despotism, but not an hereditary one. Some one in the official class was made King. No one cared how: no one cared who. He was merely an universal secretary. In this manner it happened that everything in London was very quiet. That vague and somewhat depressed reliance upon things happening as they have always happened, which is with all Londoners a mood, had become an assumed condition. There was really no reason for any man doing anything but the thing he had done the day before. There was therefore no reason whatever why the three young men who had always walked up to their Government office together should not walk up to it together on this particular wintry and cloudy morning. Everything in that age had become mechanical, and Government clerks especially. All those clerks assembled regularly at their posts.

Three of those clerks always walked into town together. All the neighbourhood knew them: two of them were tall and one short. And on this particular morning the short clerk was only a few seconds late to join the other two as they passed his gate: he could have overtaken them in three strides; he could have called after them easily. But he did not. For some reason that will never be understood until all souls are judged (if they are ever judged; the idea was at this time classed with fetish worship) he did not join his two companions, but walked steadily behind them. The day was dull, their dress was dull, everything was dull; but in some odd impulse he walked through street after street, through district after district, looking at the backs of the two men, who would have swung round at the sound of his voice. Now, there is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.

So the short Government official looked at the coat-tails of the tall Government officials, and through street after street, and round corner after corner, saw only coat-tails, coat-tails, and again coat-tails — when, he did not in the least know why, something happened to his eyes. Two black dragons were walking backwards in front of him. Two black dragons were looking at him with evil eyes. The dragons were walking backwards it was true, but they kept their eyes fixed on him none the less. The eyes which he saw were, in truth, only the two buttons at the back of a frock-coat: perhaps some traditional memory of their meaningless character gave this half-witted prominence to their gaze. The slit between the tails was the nose-line of the monster: whenever the tails flapped in the winter wind the dragons licked their lips. It was only a momentary fancy, but the small clerk found it imbedded in his soul ever afterwards. He never could again think of men in frock-coats except as dragons walking backwards.

He explained afterwards, quite tactfully and nicely, to his two official friends, that (while feeling an inexpressible regard for each of them) he could not seriously regard the face of either of them as anything but a kind of tail. It was, he admitted, a handsome tail — a tail elevated in the air. But if, he said, any true friend of theirs wished to see their faces, to look into the eyes of their soul, that friend must be allowed to walk reverently round behind them, so as to see them from the rear. There he would see the two black dragons with the blind eyes. But when first the two black dragons sprang out of the fog upon the small clerk, they had merely the effect of all miracles — they changed the universe. He discovered the fact that all romantics know — that adventures happen on dull days, and not on sunny ones. When the chord of monotony is stretched most tight, then it breaks with a sound like song. He had scarcely noticed the weather before, but with the four dead eyes glaring at him he looked round and realised the strange dead day.

The morning was wintry and dim, not misty, but darkened with that shadow of cloud or snow which steeps everything in a green or copper twilight. The light there is on such a day seems not so much to come from the clear heavens as to be a phosphorescence clinging to the shapes themselves. The load of heaven and the clouds is like a load of waters, and the men move like fishes, feeling that they are on the floor of a sea. Everything in a London street completes the fantasy; the carriages and cabs themselves resemble deep-sea creatures with eyes of flame. He had been startled at first to meet two dragons. Now he found he was among deep-sea dragons possessing the deep sea. The two young men in front were like the small young man himself, well-dressed. The lines of their frock-coats and silk hats had that luxuriant severity which makes the modern fop, hideous as he is, a favourite exercise of the modern draughtsman; that element which Mr.

Max Beerbohm has admirably expressed in speaking of "certain congruities of dark cloth and the rigid perfection of linen." They walked with the gait of an affected snail, and they spoke at the longest intervals, dropping a sentence at about every sixth lamp-post. They crawled on past the lamp-posts; their mien was so immovable that a fanciful description might almost say, that the lamp-posts crawled past the men, as in a dream. Then the small man suddenly ran after them and said — "I want to get my hair cut. I say, do you know a little shop anywhere where they cut your hair properly? I keep on having my hair cut, but it keeps on growing again." (Continues...) Excerpted from The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton, W. Graham Robertson. Copyright © 2015 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill (Dover Books on Literature & Drama): Amazon.co.uk: G. K. Chesterton: 0800759265510: Books The Napoleon of Notting Hill (Dover Books on Literature & Drama) Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1 This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading. Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Apple To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. or Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here , or download a FREE Kindle Reading App . Product details Publisher: Dover Publications Inc.; New edition edition (7 Feb.

1998) Language: English Product Dimensions: 13.6 x 1 x 21.5 cm Average Customer Review: Product Description Review 'An utterly original surreal fantasy … This great book imagines a London composed of medieval city states with Notting Hill ranged in a war against the other boroughs. Has the unexpected, surreal tone of Chestertons other masterpiece, The Man Who Was Thursday.' --The American Chesterton Society --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition. From the Back Cover The Napoleon of Notting Hill is G. K. Chesterton's first novel. Published in 1904, it is set at the end of the twentieth century. London is still a city of gas lamps and horse-drawn vehicles, but democratic government has withered away, and a representative ordinary citizen is simply chosen from a list to be king. Auberon Quin, a government clerk, something of an aesthete and even more of a joker, becomes king. Purely for his own entertainment he transforms the boroughs of London into medieval city states, with heraldic coats of arms and colourfully uniformed guards, governed by provosts in splendid robes.

Then he encounters Adam Wayne, the dedicated young Provost of Notting Hill, who takes Quin's ideas more seriously than the king himself. When the other boroughs try to force a new road through Notting Hill, Wayne, convinced that small is beautiful, fights to defend his territory. Chesterton enacts arguments about the nature of human loyalties that are still current, glorifying the little man, while attacking big business and the monolithic state. By E. A Solinas HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER on 6 Sept. 2008 Format: Paperback Imagine a 1984 London where society has frozen at turn-of-the-century levels, a King is randomly selected from the populace, and nobody really takes politics seriously. Of course, it only takes one wise, weird little man to turn all of that on its head. G.K. Chesterton's magnificently absurd comic novel explores a common theme in his books -- a person who entertains himself with an absurdly serious world -- in an increasingly heated situation where the little boroughs of London have become warring kingdoms. Not much in the way of sci-fi, but a delicious little social satire.

Friends of the eccentric Auberon Quin are understandably shocked when he is selected as the new King of England... especially since his main focus is definitely not power ("Oh! I will toil for you, my faithful people! You shall have a banquet of humour!"). After bumping into a young boy with a toy sword, Quin decides to revive the old city-states of medieval times, with city walls, banners, halberdiers, coat of arms, and ruling provosts -- all as a joke. But ten years later, a young man named Adam Wayne -- who happens to be the little boy who inspired Quin -- refuses to let a road go through Notting Hill. Quin is first delighted and then perplexed by Wayne, a man who treats the King's joke with deadly seriousness. Now a full-out medieval battle is brewing between the boroughs of London, and Auberon Quin finds that his joke may have some very serious consequences... G.K. Chesterton was no H.G. Wells when it came from trying to imagine the future --- the 1984 London he imagined was pretty much the same, technologically and socially, as the London of 1904.

Read more › The Napoleon of Notting Hill: Amazon.co.uk: G. K. Chesterton: 9781406880342: Books The Napoleon of Notting Hill One of these items is dispatched sooner than the other. Show details Buy the selected items together This item:The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton Paperback Â£5.90 Only 3 left in stock (more on the way). Sent from and sold by Amazon. FREE Delivery on orders over Â£10. Details Sent from and sold by Amazon. FREE Delivery in the UK. Details Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1 This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading. Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Apple To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. or Don't have a Kindle?

Get your Kindle here , or download a FREE Kindle Reading App . Product details Publisher: Echo Library (18 Dec. 2007) Language: English Product Dimensions: 15.2 x 0.7 x 22.9 cm Average Customer Review: Product Description Review 'An utterly original surreal fantasy … This great book imagines a London composed of medieval city states with Notting Hill ranged in a war against the other boroughs. Has the unexpected, surreal tone of Chestertons other masterpiece, The Man Who Was Thursday.' --The American Chesterton Society --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition. From the Back Cover The Napoleon of Notting Hill is G. K. Chesterton's first novel. Published in 1904, it is set at the end of the twentieth century. London is still a city of gas lamps and horse-drawn vehicles, but democratic government has withered away, and a representative ordinary citizen is simply chosen from a list to be king. Auberon Quin, a government clerk, something of an aesthete and even more of a joker, becomes king.

Purely for his own entertainment he transforms the boroughs of London into medieval city states, with heraldic coats of arms and colourfully uniformed guards, governed by provosts in splendid robes. Then he encounters Adam Wayne, the dedicated young Provost of Notting Hill, who takes Quin's ideas more seriously than the king himself. When the other boroughs try to force a new road through Notting Hill, Wayne, convinced that small is beautiful, fights to defend his territory. Chesterton enacts arguments about the nature of human loyalties that are still current, glorifying the little man, while attacking big business and the monolithic state. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition. By E. A Solinas HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER on 6 Sept. 2008 Format: Paperback Imagine a 1984 London where society has frozen at turn-of-the-century levels, a King is randomly selected from the populace, and nobody really takes politics seriously. Of course, it only takes one wise, weird little man to turn all of that on its head. G.K.

Chesterton's magnificently absurd comic novel explores a common theme in his books -- a person who entertains himself with an absurdly serious world -- in an increasingly heated situation where the little boroughs of London have become warring kingdoms. Not much in the way of sci-fi, but a delicious little social satire. Friends of the eccentric Auberon Quin are understandably shocked when he is selected as the new King of England... especially since his main focus is definitely not power ("Oh! I will toil for you, my faithful people! You shall have a banquet of humour!"). After bumping into a young boy with a toy sword, Quin decides to revive the old city-states of medieval times, with city walls, banners, halberdiers, coat of arms, and ruling provosts -- all as a joke. But ten years later, a young man named Adam Wayne -- who happens to be the little boy who inspired Quin -- refuses to let a road go through Notting Hill. Quin is first delighted and then perplexed by Wayne, a man who treats the King's joke with deadly seriousness.

Now a full-out medieval battle is brewing between the boroughs of London, and Auberon Quin finds that his joke may have some very serious consequences... G.K. Chesterton was no H.G. Wells when it came from trying to imagine the future --- the 1984 London he imagined was pretty much the same, technologically and socially, as the London of 1904. Read more › The Scandal of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® Meet the author Overview It would not be fair to record the adventures of Father Brown, without admitting that he was once involved in a grave scandal. There still are persons, perhaps even of his own community, who would say that there was a sort of blot upon his name. It happened in a picturesque Mexican road-house of rather loose repute, as appeared later; and to some it seemed that for once the priest had allowed a romantic streak in him, and his sympathy for human weakness, to lead him into loose and unorthodox action. The story in itself was a simple one; and perhaps the whole surprise of it consisted in its simplicity.

Advertising Religious Sleuths Meet the Author GK Chesterton was born in London in 1874 and educated at St Paul’s School, before studying art at the Slade School. In 1896, he began working for the London publisher, Redway, and also T. Fisher Unwin as a reader where he remained until 1902. During this time he undertook his first freelance journalistic assignments, writing art and literary reviews. He also contributed regular columns to two newspapers: ‘The Speaker’ (along with his friend Hilaire Belloc) and the ‘Daily News’. Throughout his life he contributed further articles to journals, particularly ‘The Bookman’ and ‘The Illustrated London News’. His first two books, poetry collections, were published in 1900. These were followed by collections of essays and in 1903, and his most substantial work to that point, a study of ‘Robert Browning’. Chesterton's first novel, 'The Napoleon of Notting Hill' was published in 1904. In this book he developed his political attitudes in which he attacked socialism, big business and technology and showed how they become the enemies of freedom and justice.

These were themes which were to run throughout his other works. 'The Man who was Thursday' was published in 1908 and is perhaps the novel most difficult to understand, although it is also his most popular. 'The Ball and the Cross' followed in 1910 and 'Manalive' in 1912. Chesterton's best-known fictional character appears in the Father Brown stories, the first of the collection, 'The Innocence of Father Brown', being published in 1911. Brown is a modest Catholic priest who uses careful psychology to put himself in the place of the criminal in order to solve the crime. His output was prolific, with a great variety of books from brilliant studies of ‘Dickens’, ‘Shaw’, and ‘RL Stevenson’ to literary criticism. He also produced more poetry and many volumes of political, social and religious essays. Tremendous zest and energy, with a mastery of paradox, puns, a robust humour and forthright devotion along with great intelligence characterise his entire output.

In the years prior to 1914 his fame was at its height, being something of a celebrity and seen as a latter day Dr Johnson as he frequented the pubs and offices of Fleet Street. His huge figure was encased in a cloak and wide brimmed hat, with pockets full of papers and proofs. Chesterton came from a nominally Anglican family and had been baptized into the Church of England. However, at that point he had no particular Christian belief and was in fact agnostic for a time. Nevertheless, in his late twenties he began to explore the possibility of a religious belief for himself, which he then discovered already existed as orthodox Christianity. In 1896, he had also met Frances Alice Blogg, marrying in 1901. She was a devout Anglican and her beliefs strengthened his Christian convictions. In 1922 he converted to Catholicism and he explores his belief in many works, the best known of which is 'Orthodoxy', his personal spiritual odyssey. In some ways, 'Orthodoxy' was an answer to earlier criticisms received after the 1905 publication of 'Heretics', which was a collection of studies of the then contemporary writers.

The complaint was made that Chesterton discussed these writers’ attitudes to life, but offered nothing in respect of himself. He was an ebullient character, absent-minded, but quick-witted and will be remembered as one of the most colourful and provocative writers of his day. G.K. Chesterton died in 1936. The Napoleon of Notting Hill: G. K. Chesterton: 0800759265510: Literature: Amazon Canada By EA Solinas HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWER on Sept. 7 2008 Format: Paperback Imagine a 1984 London where society has frozen at turn-of-the-century levels, a King is randomly selected from the populace, and nobody really takes politics seriously. Of course, it only takes one wise, weird little man to turn all of that on its head. G.K. Chesterton's magnificently absurd comic novel explores a common theme in his books -- a person who entertains himself with an absurdly serious world -- in an increasingly heated situation where the little boroughs of London have become warring kingdoms. Not much in the way of sci-fi, but a delicious little social satire.

Friends of the eccentric Auberon Quin are understandably shocked when he is selected as the new King of England... especially since his main focus is definitely not power ("Oh! I will toil for you, my faithful people! You shall have a banquet of humour!"). After bumping into a young boy with a toy sword, Quin decides to revive the old city-states of medieval times, with city walls, banners, halberdiers, coat of arms, and ruling provosts -- all as a joke. But ten years later, a young man named Adam Wayne -- who happens to be the little boy who inspired Quin -- refuses to let a road go through Notting Hill. Quin is first delighted and then perplexed by Wayne, a man who treats the King's joke with deadly seriousness. Now a full-out medieval battle is brewing between the boroughs of London, and Auberon Quin finds that his joke may have some very serious consequences... G.K. Chesterton was no H.G. Wells when it came from trying to imagine the future --- the 1984 London he imagined was pretty much the same, technologically and socially, as the London of 1904.

Read more › Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback... Thank you for your feedback. Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again. By Oliver Kamm on Aug. 24 2001 Format: Paperback Chesterton is one of the neglected giants of 20th-century English literature. This book ought to be considered a minor classic of both fantasy and political allegory. It tells the story of the consequences of a decree issued on a whim by a bored governor that London be devolved into districts corresponding roughly to its ancient boroughs, and each given municipal rituals in order to instil a sense of civic belonging. This joke takes on a life of its own, as the citizens of the "new" boroughs take the battle - eventually, literally a battle - to each other. The Napoleon of the title is Adam Wayne, an enthusiastic *citoyen* who takes the new arrangements with great seriousness - and whose territorial aggrandisement and downfall mirror Napoleon's career.

The point that Chesterton intimates - in a vastly more effective, because more subtle, way than more explicitly political novelists, such as Upton Sinclair - is that small and knowable communities are a desirable and indeed virtuous focus of our loyalties, but that the aggrandisement of power and territorial ambition tend to corrupt. While fashionable literary opinion (Wells, Shaw, Wyndham Lewis and so many others) was about to take a terrible wrong turning in favour of the totalitarianism of Right or Left, Chesterton's essential and very English sense of moderation formed, and continues to express, a most effective and beautifully written counterpoint. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback... Thank you for your feedback. Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again. By Clark Massey on July 28 1998 Format: Paperback The theme of the Napoleon of Nottingham Hill is that it is better to live a short exciting life than a long boring one. GKC would argue that the moment when you are most lucid and the world is convinced that you are mad is exactly when you are the most sane.

The Napoleon of Nottingham Hill is the story of how an irrational war among London's suburbs finally gives meaning to the lives of moderns who have become so board with living. The book also explains what humor is and how man can stand proud without sinning. If you read one book by GKC, let it be this book. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback... Thank you for your feedback. Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again. 3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting insight into the lives and customs of those times. A reader today will be surprised by some elements and can be f Jan. 15 2017 By Michael A. Bogdasarian - Published on Amazon.com Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase An interesting insight into the lives and customs of those times. A reader today will be surprised by some elements and can be forgiven for judging the principal characters harshly, particularly in the final scenes. While I neglected reading the footnotes until the end, they are interesting and even a bit amusing. Compared to the unadulterated brutality of The Iliad, this story reveals more about the attitudes and cultural norms while still engaging the reader who is not skilled in Greek mythology.

It also gives some insight into ourselves, the strong passions of family and the willingness to overcome terrible obstacles to get home. 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful 4.0 out of 5 stars "Humour Is the New Religion of Mankind" May 29 2013 By Paul Camp - Published on Amazon.com Format: Paperback Verified Purchase G. K. Chesterton's (1874-1936) _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_ (1904) was his first novel. It was subtitled "A Fantasy of the Future" and was set in 1984. But modern readers looking for obvious science fictional trappings in Chesterton's future world are likely to be disappointed. It is not a progressive scientific future of the sort that H.G. Wells wrote about. Nor is it an anticipation of Aldous Huxley's _Brave New World_ (1936). Like George Orwell, Chesterton did fear the dangers of an authoritarian state. But after that, any similarity of vision between Orwell and Chesterton comes to an end.

Chesterton's vision of the future, by the time we are finished with it, will have an oddly masculine and medieval flavor to it. We are introduced to an England run by only a skeleton crew of government officials and police. One of these officials, Barker, gives his rationale for the use of "alphabetical monarchies" to run the country: "Suppose he is a tyrant-- he is still in check on a hundred tyrants. Suppose he is a cynic, it is to his interest to govern well. Suppose he is a criminal-- by removing poverty and substituting power, we put a check on his criminality. In short, by substituting despotism we have put a total check on one criminal and a partial check on all the rest." Barker goes on to say: He may not be a good man. But he will be a good despot. For when he comes to a mere business routine of government he will endeavor to do ordinary justice. Do we not assume the same of a jury?" (24) But shortly afterward, another government official named Lambert has this response (which I hope is the same as yours): Lambert suddenly faced round and struck his stick into the ground in a defiant attitude.

"Auberon," he said, "chuck it. I won't have it. It's all bosh." (28) Well, it may be bosh. But society operates by that bosh and Auberon Quin is elected the new king; he is next in line alphabetically. Quin, who has heretofore treated all life as a massive joke, sees no reason to change his behavior now that he is king. Humor, Quin says, is the new religion of mankind. Almost nobody dares to question your humor for fear of appearing a fool. But an old, foreign king has warned that Quin is "a dangerous man". What does he mean by this? "Every man is dangerous... who cares only for one thing" (25). A truly sane person is one who can entertain more than one contradictory mode of thought: the scientific thinker who is also a theosopher, for example. Religious fanatics, suicide bombers, radical political idealogues are _consistent_... but insane and dangerous. Quin's obsession with jokes soon leads to trouble. The king (for a joke) divides London up into charters or municipalities with their own uniforms and coats of arms.

This leads to strife between sections of London where there was no strife before. No sooner has Quin instituted his policy than _another_ madman named Adam Wayne comes on stage and initiates a revolution against it. This being a Chesterton novel, as you might imagine, all the different factions end up collapsing together at the end. Perhaps some closing attention should be given to the influence of _Notting Hill_ on George Orwell's _1984_. Orwell had certainly read the novel; he wrote several essays on Chesterton. But it would certainly be a massive stretch to argue that Orwell's dystopia was a "reaction" to Chesterton's little comedy. Aside from the year in which they are set, there is no similarity between the two novels. 5.0 out of 5 stars "he is a man who cares for nothing but a joke. he is a dangerous man" July 2 2014 By KrasneTigritsa - Published on Amazon.com Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase meet Auberon Quin. he is a man to whom the world is a punchline; a dangerous man, for he cares for nothing but a joke. and meet Adam Wayne-to whom the joke is quite serious.

When Quin is appointed King of England, he proposes to divide England into medieval city-states-purely for the sake of the ever-important joke. when Adam Wayne is appointed Provost of Notting Hill, he proposes to be patriotic about it. amidst the chaos of confusion, the stirring speeches, the epic battles, and the all-pervading Chestertonian wit, The Napoleon of Notting Hill is(besides an awesome story) a cry for renewed life in a deadened world-a call that compels mankind to fight for the small things, if only for the sake of fighting for something. this is a book that argues to make mountains out of mole-hills, for the single and compelling reason that a mole-hill is only a heap of dirt, but a mountain is a stairway to the stars. P.S like The Man Who Was Thursday, The Napoleon of Notting Hill seems to have been written on inspiration, and for the sake of hashing out an idea, more than to expound any particular creed. 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful 4.0 out of 5 stars This is certainly different! Nov.

25 2012 By Curious - Published on Amazon.com Format: Paperback Verified Purchase Gilbert Keith Chesterton would seem to underlie a good part of his novel in his own quote: "An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." He appears to be quite optimistic in this, as otherwise his humor would seem that more of the cynic than of any other sort. Without trying to give too much of the plot away, Democracy of England has been dispensed with to lessen problems, but an elected King, a rather pompous and silly admirer of the past, has set up a system of fragmented states that cannot work well together. Shortly thereafter a civil war erupts in London with mayhem and mortality. The attempt to preserve the past ultimately destroys it and many of its defenders as well as a good number of its attackers. [A premise of a full attack is made, where practitioners of such battles as are to be recreated here were more long-held sieges. The events of the story confirms why those past warriors chose wisely in a wait and starve-them-out strategy.

The author comes out with a rather farcical conclusion, which is likely from the outset all that can be had of any government to Chesterton's judgement. As he also wrote: "Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated." So, if you thought he was not the cynic from his first quote, think again. Please note, this is not likely to be to the taste of many. 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful 4.0 out of 5 stars Sublimely ridiculous treatise on war and the minds of men Oct. 13 2013 By Leapin' Literary Lurkers - Published on Amazon.com Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase Having previously only known of G.K. Chesterton from the Father Brown series, I was entranced to learn this was his debut novel. The witty humor and descriptions of types of men set the stage beautifully for his commentary on the ludicrous aspects of war, politics, business interests...and kings.

While at times I found myself picturing Peter Sellars in "The Mouse That Roared" combined with ridiculously operatic themes, I enjoyed the presentation of the "big picture" (in this case war) being comprised of vignettes or "what is old is new" or that when businessmen agree...the non-seller must be mad and (mis)treated as such. I thought it did get bogged down some in the middle but continued to appreciate the tongue-in-cheek observations about many aspects of life. How can you argue with sentences like: "People strike dignified attitudes and pretend that things matter." Exploring Notting Hill through British literature EXPLORING NOTTING HILL THROUGH BRITISH LITERATURE Pinterest Author Adam Jacot de Boinod explores why the neighbourhood of Notting Hill has often served as a helpful muse for so many British writers There must be over fifty published authors currently living in Notting Hill. There are also a huge number of literary agencies in the area (including Rogers, Coleridge & White and David Grossman), numerous bookshops (selling either new, such as Lutyens and Rubinstein, or second-hand at Oxfam Books).

Not to mention the monthly events and talks at The Tabernacle (housing both 5×15 and Bookslam). In April 2013, Notting Hill played host to its first literary festival in the form of Nibfest. The private gardens, the stuccoed houses, the ethnic communities and general London life have shaped and coloured the writings of many of the area’s inhabitants. The ups and downs of Notting Hill’s residential appeal have also been well attested to over the years. It has been a natural literary progression from a tradition that started as early as the latter part of the 18th Century. From the Georgian era came Lady Mary Coke who lived at Aubrey House in Holland Park. In her journals and letters, she talks of the area’s ‘roses and honeysuckles’. The Victorian era ushered in Welsh author Arthur Machen on Clarendon Road. He referred to the area due north from him as ‘obscure to me and a sort of nightmare… a canal which seemed to cross my path in a manner contrary to the laws of reason.

I turn a corner and am confronted with an awful cemetery, a terrible city of white gravestones and shattered marble pillars and granite urns, and every sort of horrid heathenry’. To Arthur, Maida Vale was ‘treacherous’ and Paddington ‘false’. And yet in Edwardian 1904 came the author and poet GK Chesterton with his famous novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill, a place he depicted as containing ‘the essentials of a civilization, a chemist’s shop, a bookshop, a provision merchant for food and a public house for drink.’ MP Alan Johnson’s book This Boy portrayed a very different post-war Notting Hill Nikki Gemmell set her novel I Take You in the area (photo by Cathy Liu) The ravages of World War II are reflected by Vere Hodgson of Ladbroke Road in her diaries, titled Few Eggs and no Oranges which observed ‘there were 38 bombs on Kensington last Saturday night during two hours… no wonder we were kept diving under the table’. The poverty of the post-war years in Notting Hill is expressed bleakly by Alan Johnson in his recent childhood memoir This Boy.

And in Jonathan Raban’s Soft City, when referring to Ladbroke Grove, talks of ‘bedsitter industries like stringing beads or making candles’. He then makes the insightful observation, ‘Notting Hill incorporates a central paradox of city life, in that its nature is as prolific and untameable as anywhere in London, yet for some at least of its inhabitants it has been accommodated to an order so benign as to be cosy’. Then came the bohemian 80s and trustafarian 90s. Martin Amis, who spent much of his youth in Notting Hill, famously incorporated the area into Money (1984) and London Fields (1989), where it was envisioned as a site of urban decay. The Portobello Road of London Fields was ‘scruffed and frayed, falling apart, and full of rats.’ The dramatist Mustafa Matura in 1993 said, ‘I have seen Ladbroke Grove pass through many phases since’ the Swinging Sixties, attracting those in search of its liberating lifestyles… some good, some bad: hippy, punk, radical chic, rasta, bourgeois respectability’.

As the century turned the area’s newer, wealthy residents were satirised in Rachel Johnson’s novel Notting Hell (2006). In Alan Hollingshurst’s Booker Prize winning The Line of Beauty, the home of the fictional Fedden family is located in the grand Kensington Park Gardens. With I Take You, described as a modern-day take on Lady Chatterley’s Lover, set in Notting Hill, Australian-born but London-based writer Nikki Gemmell describes the area in terms of two colours, white and green: ‘white from those lovely rows of stately terraces – the London of Henry James and prams wheeled by nannies in parks… from the cherry blossoms in the early spring that floated down to the roads like tissue paper snow. ‘Green, from the awning of the deli on Elgin Crescent that’s crammed with goodies… from the coolness of the beautiful communal gardens, empty, languid and dank in the heat’.

‘What I love about Notting Hill’ says Nikki Gemmell, ‘is that I know the lady at the fruit stall on Portobello Road who sells me mangoes and peaches, and calls me darlin’, no matter how wet and cold the day has been or how long she’s been standing out in it’. In 2013 and again in 2014, two book releases found common ground in their exploration of Portobello Road’s history using locally-sourced anecdotes. The campaign for the future of Portobello Market is the message behind Blanche Girouard’s thoughtful book Portobello Voices, a collection of interviews with the costermongers and antique sellers, celebrating the unique qualities both of the street and the characters that keep it alive and real. And for Portobello Road: Lives of a Neighbourhood Julian Marsh, a former employee of The Travel Bookshop, charts 50 years of Portobello life. Through interviews with more than 60 local residents, Julian enters a world of Teddy Boy gangs, race riots and an independent music scene.

More than most neighbourhoods, Notting Hill it seems attracts writers from all walks of life, with beady eyes and willing pens, ready to record their vision of west London. Adam Jacot de Boinod has lived in Notting Hill for the last thirty years. He is the author of The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words from around the World and creator of the iPhone App Tingo, a quiz about unusual words

Question: Which 19th-20th century writer's first novel was 'The Napoleon of Notting Hill', published in 1904?
Answer: G K CHESTERTON